1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an optical fiber connector and a method of manufacturing the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
Referring to a FIG. 1, a conventional optical fiber connector used for connecting an optical fiber or fibers to an optical element, comprises a lower plate 70 and an upper plate 40. The lower plate 70 is provided with a V-groove 72 for accommodating an optical fiber 62 of an optical fiber cable 60, and a counter-bored portion 74 for accommodating a covering 64 of the fiber cable 60. The upper plate 40 is also provided with a counter-bored portion 74 for accommodating the covering 64 of the fiber cable 60, and an adhesive injection groove 44 communicating with the counter-bored portion 42.
However, the upper plate 40 and the lower plate 70 are made of a hard and brittle material, such as zirconia ceramics and a crystallized glass, and the counter-bored portions 42 and 74 are made by a ultrasonic machining. For this reason, much time and skill are required to perform this counterboring. In addition, to make the counter-bored portions 42 and 74, it is necessary to make the counter-bored portions 42 and 72 one by one, resulting in a lower efficiency in manufacturing. Furthermore, because dimensional and positional accuracies are low, it is necessary to provide counter-bored portions 42 and 74 having sizes larger than optimal for reliable accommodation of the covering 64 of the fiber cable 60.
The assembling is performed by placing the optical fiber cable 60 onto the lower plate 70 and retaining the optical fiber cable 60 by disposing the upper plate 40 on top. In this case, the sizes of the counter-bored portions 42 and 74 are larger than optimal, and for this reason, even though the covering 64 of the fiber cable 60 is put in the counter-bored portion 42, the optical fiber 62 is not necessarily reliably put in the V-groove 72. Moreover, the optical fiber cable 60 itself has a curling nature, and therefore after the optical fiber 62 of the optical fiber cable 60 is located in the V-groove 72, it is necessary to fix the optical fiber cable 60 at a point spaced rearwardly by a several centimeters from the lower plate 70 by a suitable method. Thereafter, the upper plate 40 is placed on the lower plate 70 to retain and fix the optical fiber cable 60. In this case, the upper plate 40 is liable to be displaced relative to the lower plate 70, thereby causing a relative misalignment of the counter-bored portion 42 of the upper plate 40 relative to the V-groove 72 and the counter-bored portion 74 in the lower plate 70.